The Ascension of Our Lord
May 27, 2001

Today we are keeping the feast of the Ascension of our Lord. When I was growing up, I went to a Private Girls' School run by an Anglican religious order. We had some unusual holidays, one of them being the feast of the Ascension. We would begin the day by trekking down to St. Thomas, the local church for Eucharist, and then we piled on buses, and the whole school – about two hundred girls – went to the island for the day. It was a day of celebration and fun. It marked the beginning of the end of the school year. There was the ride over on the ferry. There were the usual races and field events. We ate a picnic lunch.

So whenever I come to reflect on the ascension of Christ, those are the memories that come flooding back to me. They influence my thoughts. Indeed it always surprises me to find out that the Ascension is not about a picnic. In fact, it is anything but a picnic.

Jesus in his full humanity has been given new life in the resurrection. The Ascension, as he withdraws from his disciples, as he is carried from them into heaven, marks the end of Jesus' earthly life. It is, in Luke's account, clearly an encounter with the risen Lord. Jesus has appeared to Simon. He has appeared to the two disciples on the Emmaus road and has made himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. Now he is commissioning them, as witnesses of the resurrection, to continue his proclamation. It has become their responsibility to carry on the work that Jesus began.

I can imagine what it must have been like for them to discover that the risen Lord was not going to stay with them. Their sense of loss must have been profound. They had lost him once already. It had caused them to simply withdraw from the world. They had locked themselves behind closed doors. Jesus had returned to them bringing peace into their midst. How devastating to have him return only to lose him again! They must have felt so alone. They must have felt as if their world had come crashing in on them. They must have felt as if everything they had lived for was coming to an end.

When the great French statesman, Prince Talleyrand was old, he attended a large ball given for a diplomatic occasion. During the evening a message was brought to the assembled crowd informing them of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the silence that ensued, the guests looked to Talleyrand for some words of wisdom. He simply said, "It is no longer an event. It is merely a piece of information."

How easily that could have been true of the Christian proclamation! Jesus’ earthly life as recounted in the gospels could have been the end of the story. Except that something extraordinary happened to change it from being merely a piece of information. The Resurrection made it a significant event in the lives of the disciples. The post resurrection appearances of Christ and his assurances to his followers that he would be with them and would send the comforter to guide and sustain them made it an event in their lives. The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit keeps that event alive in each of us.

For fifty days we have been celebrating as an Easter people. Today that celebration comes full circle. We take on the responsibility of the Christian faith. We take on the responsibility of bearing the proclamation to the world. For Ascension Day is literally the passing of the torch from Jesus to his followers. We continue to assume that sense of responsibility as followers of Christ and that may indeed be one of the signs of the Spirit’s presence in our lives.

"One day the ice cream man came for the first time. He pushed his cart into town, ringing his bell and giving away ice cream to anyone who came. The townsfolk were not sure just what to make of him, but it spring was in the air, and the excitement of the children finally broke the ice.

One of the women ventured out to ask him who he was and where he had come from. He merely shrugged and offered her an ice cream cone. How could she refuse? As she ate the ice cream cone there stirred within her the new life of springtime.

The ice cream man returned every day after that. But it was only on the first day that he gave away the ice cream. After that the children came clutching coins, to purchase a treat. The grown ups came as well, sharing memories and enjoying the leisure. Before long they began to look forward to the sound of the ice cream man's bell. His coming came to be seen as a bit of a party in the midst of every day. Day after day the ice cream man slowly transformed a winter people into new life, healing the scars left by the biting cold and searing wind.

Then one day the ice cream man announced that the next day would be his last and that the last should mirror the first. A party of free ice cream would mark the day. They were to gather together in the Town Square. They would mark the fiftieth and final day of springtime partying.

By noon of the next day they had all gathered in the square. Yet the ice cream man did not arrive. They waited until well into the afternoon and still he had not come. Some began to grumble; others insisted that he would not break his promise.

Then in the late afternoon the grocer stood before the people. "For whatever reason the ice cream man has not come," she explained. "But he has shown us how to find each other. It's almost as if he gave us a new path – a path to one another. We've become a new people. We've finished the journey. We need to celebrate."

She invited the gathered townsfolk to her store. There she brought out ice cream for everyone. They ate, they sang, they danced and they celebrated the gift of fifty parties. When it became dark they built a fire in the centre of the square. By the glow of the firelight they listened to the stories of the ice cream man and his gift of fifty days.

In the years that followed, the people partied each year for fifty days. Sometimes it was with much celebration but more often with quiet and with smiles. Always it was with ice cream and the ringing of a bell." We have finished the journey. So what now? How do we celebrate the risen, ascended Lord? How do we continue the mission of the Church? For the ascension may mark the end of Jesus' earthly life, but it does not spell the absence of the Risen Lord from the Church. He is present to us in word and meal. He lives in an entirely different dimension. He has shown himself to be alive. He lives and can be worshiped. We will continue to encounter him in our lives. We will encounter him as we look for the inner meaning in things, the essentials, and the grace of what is occurring in our lives. More than anything else we will remain a people of hope, sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, a power promised by Jesus because we bear the responsibility of the proclamation of the Word.

"I am risen. I am still with you." That is the message to the disciples. It continues to be the message to the church today. We still encounter the risen Lord. If we have eyes to see the mystery of the resurrection, we will glimpse it all around us – in nature, in the smell of rain, the wildness of a thunderstorm, the beauty of a flower unfolding, the sight of a starry sky. We dream it. The kind of dream you wake up out of without quite remembering what it was about, and yet you feel better for having dreamed it. We celebrate it through the liturgy, through music, through the world of books, and through other people.